Backpack Blowback: Religious Right Activists Want Preferential Treatment From Public School Forum

I love this story. From the blogsite Americans United for Separation of Church and State. (See the article here):

"Backpack mail" systems are common in public schools. [The Albemarle School District] uses it to advertise extra-curricular activities such as children’s theater, summer camps and recreational sports events.

The Albemarle District previously had a sensible policy barring "distribution of literature that this for partisan, sectarian, religious or political purposes," but it was revised at the behest of the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Counsel to allow religious content.

Liberty Counsel relied on a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling earlier in 2006 that public school districts do not have "unbridled discretion to deny access to the oft-used forum" because that would not "ensure the requisite viewpoint neutrality."

So, the Religious Right got what they wanted from the federal courts (the same federal courts they accuse of "kicking God out of the public schools") and now they’re hopping mad…again.

World Net Daily reports that the Albemarle School District is under attack by a Religious Right group for sending students home with flyers for Camp Quest, an overnight summer camp for young atheists, agnostics and freethinkers.

A pagan group used the "backpack mail" system to publicize some of their events, too, which made the Religious Right even more furious. Good heavens, you open that door and look what happens . . . ANYONE can come in!

The Top Ten Big Stories the US News Media missed in the last year

Written by AMANDA WITHERELL Illustration by Mirissa NeffM

There are a handful of freedoms that have almost always been a part of American democracy. Even when they didn’t exactly apply to everyone or weren’t always protected by the people in charge, a few simple but significant rights have been patently clear in the Constitution: You can’t be nabbed by the cops and tossed behind bars without a reason. If you are imprisoned, you can’t be incarcerated indefinitely; you have the right to a speedy trial with a judge and jury. When that court date rolls around, you’ll be able to see the evidence against you.

The president can’t suspend elections, spy without warrants, or dispatch federal troops to trump local cops or quell protests. Nor can the commander in chief commence a witch hunt, deem individuals "enemy combatants," or shunt them into special tribunals outside the purview of our 218-year-old judicial system.

Until now. This year’s Project Censored presents a chilling portrait of a newly empowered executive branch signing away civil liberties for the sake of an endless and amorphous war on terror. And for the most part, the major news media weren’t paying attention.

"This year it seemed like civil rights just rose to the top," said Peter Phillips, the director of Project Censored, the annual media survey conducted by Sonoma State University researchers and students who spend the year patrolling obscure publications, national and international Web sites, and mainstream news outlets to compile the 25 most significant stories that were inadequately reported or essentially ignored.

While the project usually turns up a range of underreported issues, this year’s stories all fall somewhat neatly into two categories: the increase of privatization and the decrease of human rights. Some of the stories qualify as both.

"I think they indicate a very real concern about where our democracy is heading," writer and veteran judge Michael Parenti said.

For 31 years Project Censored has been compiling a list of the major stories that the nation’s news media have ignored, misreported, or poorly covered.

The Oxford American Dictionary defines censorship as "the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts," which Phillips said is also a fine description of what happens under a dictatorship. When it comes to democracy, the black marker is a bit more nuanced. "We need to broaden our understanding of censorship," he said. After 11 years at the helm of Project Censored, Phillips thinks the most bowdlerizing force is the fourth estate itself: "The corporate media is complicit. There’s no excuse for the major media giants to be missing major news stories like this."

As the stories cited in this year’s Project Censored selections point out, the federal government continues to provide major news networks with stock footage, which is dutifully broadcast as news. The George W. Bush administration has spent more federal money than any other presidency on public relations. Without a doubt, Parenti said, the government invests in shaping our beliefs. "Every day they’re checking out what we think," he said. "The erosion of civil liberties is not happening in one fell swoop but in increments. Very consciously, this administration has been heading toward a general autocracy."

Carl Jensen, who founded Project Censored in 1976 after witnessing the landslide reelection of Richard Nixon in 1972 in spite of mounting evidence of the Watergate scandal, agreed that this year’s censored stories amount to an accumulated threat to democracy. "I’m waiting for one of our great liberal writers to put together the big picture of what’s going on here," he said.

Click here to see the list, starting with "Goodbye, Habeus Corpus." This was certainly an eye-opening read--yes, I hadn't heard of a number of these stories.

Observation

The only really reliable way to get me to floss is to give me popcorn to eat.

(Okay, that was random.)

Karate: Slow kicks, round kicks, black belt test

Friday's class is a multi-level one, all the way from white belt to black belt. pazlazuli spent most of the class period having us do slow kicks. ( Slow kicks are the bread and butter of kicking muscle development. )

( On Saturday, we attended the quarterly black belt exam )

We went to an open house/party celebration afterwards, honoring Hannah receiving her black belt, and I had a nice long talk with pazlazuli. She surprised me by telling me that I really had good balance for someone who has been away from karate for so long. I asked her what the girls and I need to work on developing. She said that Fiona and I both have power, but we're almost too deliberate about our punches and kicks. It is as if we are placing the punch, rather than actually punching. We need to harness explosive power, but then relax between those explosions (if we stay tense all the time, it is too tiring). The exercise she recommended for the two of us was to have one of us hold a folded newspaper at head height and then drop it, and the other has to lunge forward to catch it.

Fiona also has to work on a fiercer facial expression!

Delia's problem is her crazy flexibilty doesn't have enough supportive muscle control. (She is prone to throwing out her knees in particular). pazlazuli recommended that she wear supportive knee bracing when doing karate, and that she try doing small movements (straightening her knee, leg circles) using light ankle weights, to strengthen the small muscles around each joint.

Thinking about winter

I had planned to ride my bike to work until at least the end of October. Hey, it was doable, I thought.

Now I'm rethinking.

I've noticed that I really have lost my zest for the ride for the past couple weeks. It's been harder to drag myself out of bed in the mornings, and I have been taking the bike on the train more often. And I've started to actually dread the ride home more. Why would that be when I've enjoyed biking for the most part this past summer?

I realized, upon thinking it over, that the change in going from karate schedules for two people to karate schedules for three was rather a bigger deal that I had thought. Plus, now that school has started, we're going to be adding in confirmation and girl scout meetings. I'm having more days like this one, and while originally the spirit was willing tho' the flesh is weak, lately the spirit has been less and less willing.

Plus, this is a transitional school year for both Fiona and Delia (Fiona to high school and Delia to middle school), and I would like to check in with both of them at the end of the day, go over homework assignments, etc. Delia really has expressed a wish for that, and while Fiona has not, the way she got in over her head on homework last year makes me think that she needs it. I get home a half an hour later when I bike, which gives me no time to go over the school day with them and/or get dinner started before it's time for someone to go to karate.

I'm just tired. I felt a little guilty at first when I thought about ending biking earlier than I first intended, maybe the end of September, but then I thought, hey, cut yourself some slack, lady. You are the only breadwinner in your home right now. You have a damn busy schedule, and some of it, like karate, takes an awful lot of energy. How many other Americans have been willing to drastically change their lifestyle and give up driving their car to work for six months?

*Sigh* Now I just have to find the money to go back to paying gasoline and parking fees. My budget is getting squeezed until it whimpers. This sucks.

I WANT HIM TO FIND A GODDAMN JOB.

Sparring was fun tonight

Whoa, take notice of that. The entire world must have tilted an extra few degrees on its axis: sparring was actually fun tonight.

It helped, of course, that when I got there I was REALLY in the mood to hit something because of various acerbic comments that had been made at dinner by someone who won't be named about how the spaghetti noodles were sticking together because I hadn't rinsed them properly.

I worked hard and enjoyed it. And I won one of my bouts, very hard fought, against someone who was a lot younger and more advanced than me.

Then I came home and had a GREAT talk with Fiona. About karate, and high school and adolescence and growing up. We've decided to make a ritual on Monday nights to talk together, maybe over tea, on Mondays after I get back from sparring, since our dinner hour is so rushed, what with two karate classes. (Delia will usually join us, but she was extra tuckered and so went to bed early.)

So now I am in charity with my family again,

Yes: to get over a snit, go to the dojo and hit someone.

Then come back home for some lovely mother-daughter bonding.